Sam Houston State 22, UTSA 7: How the game was lost

So, if the Roadrunners were unhappy with their offensive execution last week, in a game they scored 54 points, one can only imagine what the reaction will be following Saturday’s game at Sam Houston State, in which they failed to run the football, forked over five turnovers and yielded a safety.

Wait, I already know: “It’s called not making plays. If you don’t make plays, you’re not going to win.”

That was the observation — bland, but accurate — of head coach Larry Coker, who was left to lament a game that, with a better performance from his offense, could have produced the first significant victory in Roadrunners history. But, thanks to the aforementioned sloppiness, and despite a quality performance from the defense that, three plays aside, largely bottled up Sam Houston State star Tim Flanders, it was not to be.

The factors, in more detail:

No running game

Having coached both Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas at Oklahoma State, Coker is a man who knows the power of running the football. So does offensive coordinator Travis Bush, who ran a variation of the Wing T for his dad in high school. Yet, despite having the will to run, the Roadrunners did not have a way against Sam Houston State, amassing just 29 yards — including negative 1 yard in the first half — on 19 attempts.

Part of the reason for the lack of production was because UTSA didn’t want to waste precious plays establishing a ground game against Sam Houston State’s national-ranked run defense, which spent all game attacking the line of scrimmage with blitzes.

Another was because, outside of halfback Evans Okotcha, nobody else in the backfield did anything. Tevin Williams had more dropped passes (two) than yards (one). Chris Johnson fumbled for the third time in five games. David Glasco had his streak of games with a touchdown snapped at four after rushing for a paltry two yards on two carries.

Better blocking would have helped. But so would any kind of inspiration with the football.

Mistakes

Two fumbles, including one on the opening kickoff. Three interceptions, one of which set up Sam Houston State’s first touchdown. A handful of dropped passes. Six penalties. A safety. There were probably more, but if the lead didn’t clue you in, this should give the picture — UTSA committed WAY too many mistakes to win on the road, let alone at a nationally-ranked FCS team.

Fair or not, quarterback Eric Soza’s going to get a big chunk of the blame. Which, not surprisingly, he willingly shoulders. “I’m my own worst critic,” he said. Given little support from his backs and receivers, Soza was on his way to a nightmarish game before bouncing back somewhat in the second half, during which he completed 18 of 32 passes for 140 yards. Not great, but much better than the first half, in which he was only 8 for 20 with two interceptions.

Still, very inconsistent, which pretty much summed up UTSA offense’s not only on Saturday, but over the last four games.

Sam Houston State isn’t bad on defense

Indeed, the Bearkats are pretty damn good. At least, they were Saturday, when they basically took UTSA’s run game away, stuck their CBs out on islands and dared the Roadrunners to beat them deep while they unleashed wave after wave of blitzers.

UTSA finally started taking what the Bearkats were giving them in the second half, but I never had any sense they were in any real danger of losing the game, even without their starting QB and clearly playing a couple of gears below full speed. You can do that when your defense is totally dictating the game like Sam Houston State’s did on Saturday.

So, two weeks after they didn’t quit against Southern Utah, the Roadrunners earned another moral victory on Saturday, thanks largely to their own strength on defense.